Anxiety

Everyone gets a little nervous from time to time, and a touch of the butterflies before a presentation, interview or meeting someone new for the first time. This level of anxiety is actually performance enhancing and can be motivating.

Anxiety can be divided into two categories: destructive anxiety and natural anxiety.

Destructive anxiety is driven by insecurity and is disproportionate to the circumstances, is always greatly exaggerated and is persistent. Its purpose is to try and control life with an intense flurry of mental activity such as worrying, ruminating, obsessing and the like and appears to consume your waking thoughts. It is a pervasive, and sometimes acute, sense of agitation and distress that affects both mind and body. Physiological symptoms include increased heartbeat, sweating, dry mouth, nausea and muscle tension combined with intense mental uneasiness that might include fear of losing control altogether – or even dying.

Natural anxiety, on the other hand, is normal, proportionate to the circumstances and is not exaggerated or bound by time. Natural anxiety is actually an inescapable part of everyday life. However, just because natural anxiety is a normal part of life it does not mean you cannot deal with it.

Coaching can help you know when enough is enough and how to let anxiety go and stop natural anxiety become destructive anxiety. If left to escalate, natural anxiety can take on one or more of types of destructive anxiety, such as general anxiety disorder (GAD), panic attacks, obsessive –compulsive disorder, and social anxieties and phobias. The coach will use techniques to help you understand your anxiety in more detail, where it came from and how you can start changing your thinking patterns, to do things differently, build your self-confidence and reduce self-consciousness